


Science of Magic

by lantia4ever



Series: Same Direction (IronStrange, Sorcerer!Tony AU) [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, BAMF Tony Stark, Banter, Cloak is team Iron Man, Doctor Strange AU, First Meetings, Fix-It of Sorts, I swear I will keep on adding the Cloak into characters until someone adds it, Iron Man AU, M/M, Sorcerer Tony, Tony-centric, age of ultron is dead too, canon is dead, the Marvel timeline is free real estate, this hc is turning into one giant meme, too much Tony sass for one fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 20:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18351590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lantia4ever/pseuds/lantia4ever
Summary: Tony Stark is dying and since everything in his life must be a huge irony, the one thing keeping him alive is also the one killing him. While exploring his options, he hears a story of a miraculously cured woman from Jersey and follows the leads all the way to Kathmandu and the doorstep of Kamar-Taj.He doesn't find the cure there, but he sure finds some good answers. And becomes the Master of the Mystic Arts in the process...The prequel and a tiny continuation of the series from Tony's side of things this time! \o/





	Science of Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! ^^
> 
> Before diving into the events of Civil War - because of course I will and of course Civil War is later down the timeline in my head, always - and all the fun stuff after that, I thought we could first take a step back and see how the whole Master of the New York Sanctum Tony Stark came to be. Or just sorcerer!Tony in general. 
> 
> So sit back and enjoy some more wild alternate events, this time from Tony's POV and let me know what you think! <3 
> 
> ~Lantia

Tony should have known this was a ridiculous idea. In all his years and thousands of his ridiculous ideas, this is the one to rule them all.

“You’re talking about _magic_ ,” he stares at the bald-ass woman, his blank expression definitely rivaling hers. “Waving wands, mixing potions, fighting the Death Eaters, that kinda thing?”

“You’re a man of science, Anthony Stark. The mystic arts, believe it or not, have been part of that science since the dawn of days. This dimension, this universe, the energy coursing through it, it’s built on the foundation of both science and magic.”

“Riiiight. Oh look at the time! I’m gonna miss my flight, better hurry up,” he forces a smile and gets up, putting down the cup of the god-awful tea she served him.

She follows his movement, also standing up. Only her tiny quirk of lips looks more sinister than anything. “Let me show you then.”

Without a warning, she surges onwards and in the next five minutes, he experiences the worst, most vivid trip ever.

Or that’s what he makes himself believe.

“Science is so much more than you think it is,” she continues arguing her point after returning them back to their solid bodies. “Set aside everything you have learnt and with an open mind, you might just find what you came looking for here.”

“Wow. The fuck did you put in that tea? That’s some strong stuff…who’s your source? Damn,” he blinks at her, still getting his bearings.

“Denial is one way to go about this, yes.”

“Deni…look, I didn’t come here to join a drug cult led by a bald Ashtar Sheran.”

“You came here to search for a cure to the poison that’s slowly killing you.”

He didn’t tell her that. “I didn’t tell you that,” he says it out loud, squinting at her.

“No need. You have an unhealthy aura, slowly fading and weakening. Classic signs of poisoning. This…thing inside your chest is the cause, is it not?”

“Yeah, slow down Derren Brown. Even if…IF…I entertained the thought of this whole magic thing being real…IF! Then I still don’t see how waving my hands like an idiot would help me cure myself.”

“Indeed. Clearly, you are in the wrong place after all, Anthony.”

“Don’t call me that,” he glares at her.

“It was lovely meeting you, good day,” she waves at the suddenly opening doors that some unknown force pretty much throws him through and out of the cult house.

 

It could have been the last he’d ever hear of Kamar-Taj, the last time he’d ever set foot in Kathmandu. But he’s Tony Stark and Tony Stark does NOT get kicked out of ANYWHERE. Not even out of Hogwarts.

So he keeps coming back until he annoys the Ancient One, Mordo and half of the other recruits into letting him stay there and study the so called mystic arts.

He does that partly because he still believes the whole place is sitting on a mountain of coke and all the fancy sparkly stuff everyone is conjuring are in fact their drug-induced hallucinations.

Partly because he's a desperate man in a desperate situation and he's backed up into a corner where even magic sounds like something he might allow himself to believe in if it solves his problems.

His inner dilemma ends the moment he portals from the top of Mount Everest back into the courtyard in Kamar-Taj. Hallucinating the sparkly stuff can be an easy explanation - hallucinating using the sparkly stuff to create functional portals from one point in space to another is not that easy anymore.

 _Especially_ to his stubbornly scientific brain.

"Well?" the Ancient One quirks one barely noticeable eyebrow at his shivering form on the floor and Tony could swear she's seconds away from smirking.

"Well...," he stands up, brushing the dirt and snow from his ACDC T-shirt. They are never making him wear those monk-ass clothes! "I think I can safely debunk the drug theory. Unless this is some real, new-age super strong shit us old-timers don't know about yet."

"You are truly iron-headed if you won't start believing the mystic arts even after using a spell yourself. Successfully too I might add."

"One time. This was one time. Can still be just a coincidence or the result of my sleep-deprived, twisted and dying brain."

She gives him a long, deep sigh while Mordo rolls his eyes behind her.

"So...does this go long distances?" he grins and five minutes later, he portals to his living room in Malibu.

 

Maybe there _is_ something to it after all.

 

* * *

 

 

"Did you steal those from the Library?"

"And what are you now, the book police? Beyoncé please."

"Do not call me that. I was sent after you by the librarian to investigate. No recruit is going to be borrowing books on astral projection and mirror dimensions this early in their training. None but you," Wong glares at him - which to be honest is his default look.

“So? I’m gonna give them back in a couple of days if that’s what Master Nerdpants is worried about.”

“That’s not the point. The library has a strict no portals policy. And he would prefer to know which books are currently outside of the library, too.”

“Pfffffffft. I leave him notes!”

Wong squints at him, slapping a yellow posted note saying ‘Tony Stark was here’ on the table. “This doesn’t count as officially borrowing books from the library.”

“Well, it would all be much easier if you had a digital database. Just because you all dress like you’re from the fifties – the thirteen-fifties, doesn’t mean you can’t harness the power of this famous 20th century Turing invention, what’s it called…oh yes. _The computer_ ,” he smirks at the wizard. “Go digital or go home.”

“Good luck explaining that to the Ancient One.”

“Oh I’ll be delighted to introduce her to the so called _technology_. She might even change her name to the _Modern_ One afterwards.”

There’s a tiny, upward twitch in Wong’s lips so Tony considers his work done here.

 

It’s fascinating, really. This new, vast world of the mystic arts. Too bad he won’t be around long enough to enjoy much of it. He exhausted all the medical options and even after weeks of studying and practicing, he’s nowhere near figuring out how he’s supposed to use magic to cure himself.

It’s supposed to be an exchange – giving up magic for the personal gain of being healthy again. Now that he has delved deep and fully into what magic has to offer, he’s not sure if that’s a trade he’s willing to make.

“A cure is not what you came looking for here,” the Ancient One tells him, when he voices his concern one evening.

“Oh really? Huh. Could have fooled myself.”

“You came here looking for answers. A new point of view. A different perspective.”

“I could swear I came here to investigate how this woman from Jersey is still alive after being diagnosed with a late-stage brain tumor and then apply the same to myself but hey, your explanation works too, I guess.”

“Would you rather die than give up on the mystic arts?”

“That’s not what I’m saying…although it’s difficult to imagine my life without the mystic arts now that you’ve given me a taste of it. So yeah, thanks.”

She gives him a sad smile, eyes piercing him through and through. “You’ve been studying day and night, going through one book after the other, training and practicing like your life’s depending on it.”

“No shit,” he laughs a bit hysterically.

“What have you learnt then? I don’t mean spells,” she stops him before he could start listing them in detail. “What have you learnt from the mystic arts, Anthony?”

He pauses, taking his time to think about the answer while glaring at her. “You mean other than everything being obscure and metaphorical and that everything coming out of your mouth is a riddle at best?”

“When you need to be on the other side of the world in just few seconds, what do you do?”

“I portal in there,” he rolls his eyes, not even surprised to be replied to with a question.

“You only know how to do that because somebody once asked the same question – only they didn’t have the answer yet. There were no portals, no sling rings. Old ways were no longer enough so they had to find…they had to _invent_ a new way. Isn’t that what you do for a living? Invent new things?”

“Yeah, but that’s not - ” he stops mid-sentence when his brain finally computes what the Ancient One is saying. “Huh. When there’s no spell capable of doing what I need, then we can always just _create a new one_.”

“Indeed.”

“So if there’s no element capable of…huh,” he stands up, abruptly enough to make his head spin – if it wasn’t going ten million turns a second already. “I’ll just create a new element, simple as that,” he blurts out and stares at the amused Sorcerer Supreme. “Thanks for the weed tea – and the talk. Especially the talk. I’ll see you later,” he adds in a hurry, already half-way inside a portal back to his lab.

 

 

In the end it’s not that simple – but still simpler than he imagined it would be all those weeks ago when he arrived at the doorstep of Kamar-Taj. One new element and a couple of new spy friends later, Tony is back on the ‘not about to die from palladium poisoning within a month’ list and surprisingly also still on the list of mystic arts trainees.

“What were you doing in Kathmandu anyway?” Natasha asks him, the one official trip clearly a big mystery to the spy.

“I joined a mystic arts cult and learnt magic from an ancient, bald woman in her weed tea dojo.”

She chuckles, shaking her head. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”

“For once, I’m actually completely serious.”

“Riiiight,” she laughs some more and drops the topic.

He could drop _her_ into an empty portal and let her fall for a bit just to prove his point but he’s over and done with proving his points. Nobody listens anyway, not really. The little profile she made about him speaks for itself.

Iron Man recommended, Tony Stark – the narcissist who doesn’t play well with others and has zero respect for authorities – definitely not recommended.

In a way, it’s a testament to his acting and manipulative abilities if his well-constructed lie of a public image managed to fool even the most fearsome and thorough former Russian spy such as the Black Widow.

Why bother arguing the truth? Everyone is happy believing the lie so why should he ruin their day?

Seeing how _thrilled_ the government and Fury were to have Tony Stark as Iron Man, there’s no reason he should be adding onto that with Tony Stark the future Master of the Mystic Arts. They don’t even trust him with his own tech, let alone with actual magic.

So he quietly hands over the reins of Stark Industries to Pepper and continues to live his secret double life, divided between tinkering in his lab and training in Kamar-Taj.

 

* * *

 

 

He thought it would be more difficult to handle being both Iron Man and Dumbledore at the same time. The Ancient One warned him about it. Now that he’s a Master he will have many responsibilities – including keeping the world of the mystic arts a secret as it’s been since forever. Him being such a public and noticeable figure, he agreed with her at first.

They were both fools to think the modern world would be onto him for being a sorcerer.

He’s not sure if it’s just the unbelievable nature of real magic that makes people so blissfully ignorant or a combination of that and good old stupidity, but even when he stops a falling building with a spell - _on camera_ , with sparks of magic around his arms and surrounding the building - nobody questions it.

“Oh that? It’s an anti-gravity field I’m testing for the new suit,” he makes that sorry excuse on the spot and everyone eats it up like candy. Not even stopping to wonder how he’s testing something scientifically not quite possible just yet, for a suit he’s not even wearing. Speaking of what he’s wearing…

“Are you a fan of Star Wars?” one of the wannabie-observant reporters asks, pointing at his medieval get-up, poorly hidden underneath the first bathrobe he got his hands on which just happened to be brown of all colors.

“I was just on my way to a con, yeah,” he confirms the blatant lie and again, everyone just nods it away.

He buys himself a couple Jedi robes and the next time he gets caught fighting crime wearing it, the reporters don’t even bother questioning it because by that time, social media are exploding with Tony-Wan Kenobi memes and Disney even offered him a cameo in the next movie.

It works out so well it impresses even the Ancient One.

He eventually tells Rhodey, Happy and Pepper, after a number of highly suspicious questions (turning into a marketing tool for a movie series he’s been criticizing for its nonexistent science since the eighties was a dead giveaway) but other than that, nobody gets even close to figuring it out.

 

 

If his perfect guise was ever to be discovered, it’d be during Loki’s uninvited visit on Earth. And it would be all Fury’s fault.

Only Fury can discover a powerful relic that happens to have one of the six Infinity stones inside it and decide it’s a good idea to keep it and experiment with it. Surely nothing can go wrong with a relic the Nazis wanted to use to wipe out their enemies with – and nearly succeeded.

Asgardian gods, a de-frosted supersoldier from the forties, an angry scientist with nine doctorates and a set of SHIELD agents…that’s exactly the kinda company he wanted to spend his weekend with. And let’s not forget the swarm of invading aliens, that’s always a nice addition.

Nobody can blame him that he did a bit of multitasking while dealing with the whole mess.

Like hacking into all of SHIELD files. Assessing the so called Avengers while they’re arguing their asses off because of Loki’s scepter – that’s another Infinity stone right there. Keeping the Master of the New York Sanctum busy with a gazillion warning fire messages – that he likely ignored because he never showed up to help….asshole. And pissing off Loki as much as humanly possible.

“How will your friends have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting you?” Loki leers at him, tapping the scepter on his chest.

“Ah, the blue stick of destiny. Mind stone, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s not gonna work on me, honey.”

Loki tries again anyway, face contorting into more and more anger with every second.

“You’re trying to mind-control my arc reactor, for fuck’s sake! Besides, if there’s one area of magic I really, _really_ hate – it’s the mind control kind. Learning how to protect myself from it was on top of my list – right after creating an endless pot of coffee, that took priority over pretty much everything else.”

Loki throws him across the room with a snarl and Tony must admit he deserved it with all his non-stop rambling. On second thoughts, no he didn’t because this is his brand new home and he can ramble in it all he wants, especially when facing an evil god from another realm hell-bent on destroying the world.

Funny…how that doesn’t make any sense. Sure, Loki has a bag of daddy issues and a bit of a trifle with his brother – none of which is a good enough reason to come here and fuck with Earth.

“See, that’s why I hate mind-controlling magic. No matter how powerful of a sorcerer you are, without good prep and an extensive knowledge of all sorts of mind-control techniques, you’re prone to being vulnerable against it. So my question is,” he gets up and dodges the advancing god. “Did you smack your chest with the scepter for shits and giggles yourself, or was that someone else? You know, someone with an _actual_ reason to want Earth gone?”

“Excuse m - ”

There really is just one way to find out, so he sends the most powerful counter-spell for mind-control he knows at the man and watches the anger in his face melt into confusion.

Loki looks at the scepter, then at his surroundings and finally at Tony. “What is this trickery, witch?! Why am I here?!”

“Yeah, I don’t have time to walk you through the mind-control afterglow right now. Later, Reindeer-games,” he slips on the sling ring and sends Loki into his favorite, free-falling portal for the time being.

There’s one bigger and more problematic portal to deal with after all.

“What’s the status, J?”

“ _There are hundreds of alien soldiers passing through the wormhole and attacking New York as we speak…along with what I can only describe as a couple of space whales, Sir_.”

“Awesome. Analyze the wormhole and the contraption Loki set up upstairs, see if we have some options to shut it all down. I’ll go play with the whales.”

Space whales and their pesky minions, Tony can deal with. As a matter of fact, the Avengers can deal with those just fine. Hulk closely introduces them to the softness of concrete, Captain America single-handedly takes over the command of all the city police and military forces and defends the perimeter with swings of his shield and his fist, Thor decides it’s hammer time, Clint goes all Legolas on them and Natasha ninjas them into submission.

Poor alien fuckers didn’t expect to meet such resistance. Neither did they expect Tony to conjure an impenetrable wall of magic in front of the wormhole so none of their reinforcements could get through.

What Tony and the millions of people living in New York didn’t expect was some shady secret agency overlord slash asshole decide that the battle is lost and their only option is to nuke the city. That’s the thing – you nuke a city once to solve all your problems and it becomes your number one option for solving all your problems.

“I’m so done with your bullshit, Fury!” he yells at the man through the radio. “We’re having a serious talk after this.”

He could magic the nuke away, but since when has he ever missed an opportunity to debunk movie trivia?

“JARVIS? Time to Independence Day these suckers – and fail completely at it,” he smirks and takes the missile through the portal. It saves New York from becoming the setting of the next Fallout game but has otherwise no effect at all. It’s hard for missiles to fly, burning through fuel in the vacuum of space. No oxygen, no fire, no nuking the aliens today.

“ _It was worth a try, Sir_.”

“Not quite done here,” he grins and portals the nuke inside the mothership and sets it off, watching the ship explode in a very boring, non-Michael Bay way. “Welp. I take every bad thing I’ve ever said about Independence Day and the incompetent aliens with no firewalls back. It’s clearly realistic,” he comments, letting the Earth’s gravity pull him back through the portal and restart the Iron Man systems.

“ _Using magic in this case most definitely counts as cheating, Sir_.”

“Ah, yes. Guess you can’t firewall against that.”

“ _I believe there is a way to close the wormhole by using the scepter to bypass the protective barrier. It’s what Dr. Selvig also suggests_.”

“Finally. This went for long enough…I’ve heard nothing but great stuff about this shawarma place two blocks away? It’s been making me hungry ever since.”

He descends back into the penthouse and with a flick of hands, he lets Loki fall out of the portal.

“I’ve been falling for twenty minutes!” he yells, glaring into the ground.

“Sorry, still no time to deal with you,” Tony walks over him and grabs the scepter, flies it on the roof and close the portal with it.

Aliens really shouldn’t have the right to attack on Sundays.

“ _Good job, everyone_!” Cap shares some praise in the midst of the rubble and fallen aliens.

“Yeah, let’s go celebrate with that shawarma, how about that? And begin cleaning this mess…JARVIS?”

“ _I’m on it, Sir_.”

“Make sure all the alien stuff is confiscated, we don’t want people reverse-engineering the space whale or something. And call in some emergency medical teams, the hospitals around here are gonna need a hand. Also, we c…what the fuck?! Hulk!”

“Puny God,” Hulk points at the Loki-shaped hole in the floor.

“See, this is why I can’t have nice things,” Tony flails his hands, staring at the broken up marble floor. “So, Reindeer-games. You up for that drink now or what?”

The only answer he gets is a high-pitched, pained whine.

 

 

So maybe Loki figured him out…and Thor keeps calling him the Iron Witch…but they’re the odd aliens so nobody takes them seriously. And since the Ancient One decided to award his protective efforts by making him the Master of the New York Sanctum, Loki isn’t going to be a problem anymore, ever.

One of the few perks of being the Mater of a Sanctum – he gets to tap into that ancient, powerful magic stuff that fuels the defensive shield around Earth. Anything tries to pass that shield – like rogue Asgardian gods – and he will know right away.

The other perk is the ability to redecorate the place…and by redecorate, he means completely rebuild from the ground up, so to speak. The Ancient One looks skeptical at first, but even she has no arguments against floor-heating, electricity and some much needed plumbing.

“Come on! Romans had plumbing and that was _thousands_ of years ago!” he glares at Mordo when the sorcerer starts complaining about natural order or what not. There’s nothing natural about a house without a flushing toilet in the middle of 21st century New York.

That’s about all the perks.

From there on, it’s just work, more work and to spice it up a bit – even more work. Exactly how his brain likes it. Even after battling aliens, evil Earthly villains and evil inter-dimensional beings, his greatest enemy is still boredom. If he’s too busy keeping up with his public persona of Tony Stark the Iron Man and his secret persona of Tony Stark the Dumbledore 24/7, there’s no time to be bored.

So much to study and practice. So much to achieve, still. And if anyone asks him, waaaay too many questionable artifacts to deal with in the Sanctum.

It’s part of the job – to obtain and secure magical artifacts, but someone clearly went on a Pokémon gathering rampage in here before him. He could open ten museums around the world with all this junk!

What’s worse, half of it has the potential to be extremely dangerous and of course nobody bothered labeling anything in there.

The Chalice of Eternal Suffering? That thing is like a Cruciatus curse in a bottle and his predecessor had it in the kitchen cupboard next to tea cups. Fuck’s sake…there are a few seemingly useless ones like the Cauldron of Cosmos and at least one suspiciously sentient red cape he dug out of an ancient chest in the attic – probably cursed and it’s going to start haunting him now – but otherwise he would rather run them all through a diamond shredder and be done with them.

Apparently that’s not the way according to Mordo at least, so he has to keep them here…if a wizard gone bad ever gets their hands on these, he’ll blame Mordo. Not that he expects JARVIS – the newest layer of security in the Sanctum – to let anyone just take the stuff. Not when he has semi-enchanted weaponry at his disposal now.

“What do you think?” he beams at Rhodey after giving him a tour.

“It’s…definitely something else. Compared to the Malibu mansion, I mean. Why did you name the jukebox _Alexa_?”

“That’s a gramophone, my dear Platypus. And I’ve totally hacked into Apple’s R&D and stole their next wannabie AI. Not the AI itself mind you, just the name…you should have seen the code, their R&D stands for Ridiculous & Demented.”

“O…kay? Is there a reason you have a flying duvet following you everywhere?”

“Wh – “ he whirls around, spotting the red fabric flying right behind him again. “You! Get in here!” he keeps trying to catch it, turning round and round until his head spins. In the end he catches it through a quick portal and glares at the faceless, brainless cape everyone insists on calling the Cloak of Levitation. Whoever made the thing forgot to mention it does more than levitate. “It’s not a duvet, it’s a weirdo stalker! Go, make yourself useful around here, cape!”

The Cloak slips out of his light grip and with a dramatic flare to its hems, it flies off somewhere.

“This some weird shit, man,” Rhodey stares after it.

“Tell me about it.”

“Does that mean your Malibu house is for grabs? The Tower?”

“Why, you want them? Nah, I’m keeping Malibu. And the Tower is half-Avengers half-SI thing now so…”

“Still got the penthouse though, pretty sweet view and everythin’.”

“Also a gigantic hole in the floor…but yeah. I guess. You’re right though, I’ll be staying here most of the time now. Workshop’s still in Malibu…oh well. I’m one portal away from anywhere in the world, so that’s not a problem really.”

“Can’t wait for the Halloween parties in here, it’s got the haunted house vibe and you already have weird ghosts dancing in the air,” he chuckles, nodding at something behind Tony.

“You!” he yells when he spots the Cloak mimicking some solid dance moves behind his back. “Yeah, you better run for it!” Tony adds, taking the stairs three at a time while giving chase to the spooked cape.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes it’s all fun and games, other times he’s reminded of the reason why the Order of the mystic arts exists in the first place – there’s dangerous and powerful stuff out there and for one reason or the other, Earth and this dimension as a whole is their favorite target.

Dealing with magical threats becomes such a daily routine for him that he almost forgets humans always find new and fun ways to become threats to themselves even without magic and demons and pissed-off forest fairies.  

Good old Earthly villains are still a thing and Tony has to be often reminded of the fact, otherwise he will end up being blown away into Nebraska more times in the future than he would prefer. Dealing with the faux Mandarin, the Extremis mess and the crazy scientist behind it all is easy and maybe that’s the reason why he’s not expecting the next dose of shitty human villainy so soon and oh so close to home.

He’d say he’s surprised that HYDRA somehow got their hands on the damn blue stick of destiny, but seeing that HYDRA was half of SHIELD all along…yeah, he’s not surprised at anything anymore.

Maybe a liiiiiittle surprised at HYDRA having their own mind invading wizards?

“Uhhhh…what are you doing?” he peels his eyes off of the scepter, stealthily dropping it into a portal back to the Tower and slowly turns around to face the pesky wannabie-intruder. Which turns out to be a very confused teenage girl and her edgy boyfriend…or whatever. Is HYDRA running elementary school now?!

She flicks her hands about, strings of red magic trying to reach out and mess around with his head again. Not a Master of the mystic arts, that’s for sure. Judging by the vibe the magic emits, it’s got something to do with the Mind stone.

Great, exactly what they needed to deal with today – teenage infinity stone mutants on HYDRA’s payroll. What a terrible combination of both Eartly villains and magic – then again, it’s right up his alley.

“Sorry, this didn’t work for Loki and it won’t work for you, kids. You might wanna stand down and - ”

“Get the scepter!” the witch barks at the guy and in a split of a second he’s standing behind Tony, grabbing some nice handful of air.

“Yeah I already took that, Thor will want to have it back. Damn you move fast, kid. Is it steroids or is HYDRA back to experimenting on humans?”

“Why isn’t it working?!” the guy ignores Tony completely, more focused on his witchy companion who’s once again back to trying her mind tricks.

“I don’t know!” she responds in the same, funky accent.  

“I know why…if you’re interested in my input at all?” Before Tony can blink, the guy grabs the girl and they’re out of the secret room of this secret HYDRA base. “O…kaaaaay. Good talk. JARVIS? Run a background check on them.”

“At once, Sir.”

“You guys ready to pack up or what?” he prompts the Avengers through the radio. “The package is secure.”

“Where is it?” Thor asks few minutes later, as they all gather at the evac point.

“Back in the Tower, safe and sound.”

“Did you FedEx it or something?” Clint quips, not losing his snarky flare even when wounded.

“Or something,” Tony nods, way beyond the point of attempting the truth. The last time he said he portalled himself to the Tower, he got laughed at by everyone. Everyone but Thor.

“Many thanks, Man of Iron. The sooner it’s back on Asgard, the better.”

“Couldn’t agree more.”

“Really?” Bruce raises an eyebrow at him, bundling himself up in a gazillion blankets. “Thought you’d want to…you know. Poke at it a bit with science first.”

“Oh I already did – multitasking is my favorite secondary science. So yeah, the sooner this thing leaves Earth, the better. It’s too powerful and the Mind stone has a nasty, sentient vibe to it,” he shudders. “Keep it safe, Thunderman. I swear if I ever spot your brother playing around with it again, I will stick it up his godly asshole,” he warns him, making Steve groan.

“Loki is dead,” Thor says with a sullen expression.

“Please, when is he ever dead? If you don’t want to take my word for it, take Odin’s.”

“What?” Thor frowns.

“I caught your daddy-dearest loitering around New York, trashing coffee cups at bistros and everything. Apparently, _someone_ banished him from Asgard. He’s in Norway if you wanna chat. And Loki is probably doing something…unseemly on Asgard.”

“Son of a bitch,” Thor utters and spins his hammer.

“Hey now, that’s your mother you’re talking about. Or is it? Your genealogy is so confusing. Don’t forget the scepter!” Tony yells after his flying form. “Fucking Asgardians, am I right?” he turns to the mildly amused Avengers…well, all but one.

“Seriously?” Rogers groans again, glaring at Tony.

“And if _you_ berate me about _LANGUAGE!_ ever again, you don’t even wanna know what places I’ll shove that shield up, Cap!”

Making Captain America lose his shit is turning out to be his third favorite science, for sure.

 

He should have shipped Odin back to Asgard the first time he portalled the old man into the Sanctum to interrogate him. Whenever he gets bored of his retirement trip in Norway, he visits the Sanctum to catch up. Which is super awkward considering Tony really doesn’t know the guy and what he does know makes him only like the god less.

Especially after he destroys half of the artifact room because apparently, Asgardian gods don’t know how to open glass displays without breaking into them.

Figures.

“Is that why the Cloak of Levitation is locked away in that display?” The Ancient One asks during one of her scarce none-work related visits to the Sanctum, listening to Tony complain about barbaric Asgardians.

“It’s serving its punishment time for all the naughty stuff it’s done. It’s at twenty days…out of twenty thousand.”

She uses her Eyebrows of Invisibility to do the talking for her again, rising all the way up to her shiny head.

“Don’t worry, it can get out just fine…I lied, the glass is just glass, no enchantments or other magic and it’s not being punished for twenty thousand days.”

“Then why?”

“I’m proving a point. Made a bet it won’t be able to stay inside for longer than two months,” he grins.

“With Wong?” she inquires suspiciously.

“No. With _it_. The Cloak.”

“You made a bet with the Cloak of Levitation,” she sums it up, look at him with a dazed expression she only ever seems to be using in his presence. Tony understands, it’s difficult dealing with all of his uncontrollable brain power.

“Yeah. If it makes it past the two months, it can fly around the Sanctum however it likes forever. If it doesn’t, I get to wear it and it will fly _me_ around the Sanctum however _I_ like – forever.”

“You made a bet with a magical artifact,” she basically repeats herself and sounds even more confused.

“Sure, why not? It’s about as sentient as JARVIS and I make bets with JARVIS all the time.”

“ _You also lose all the time, Sir_.”

“That’s beside the point, J. Anyway, if you wanna get in on the bet I’m sure we could spice it up a bit. Extend the flying around to Kamar-Taj…or make you re-grow your hair.”

“Bye, Tony,” she slowly backs into a quick portal she flicks into existence, lips twisting in a smile.

“I’m serious! Bet against it with me and I’ll share the wearing hours! It’s super fashionable!” he yells into the slowly collapsing portal. “Pffft. Doesn’t know what she’s missing out.”

 

It’s only fitting, that on the day the Cloak wins the bet, all hell breaks loose.

Or the Dark Dimension breaks loose to be exact. Just when he thought he won’t have to deal with evil Hogwarts sorcerers, there goes Kaecilius to ruin that theory with his evil Cthulhu summoning master plan.

He pacifies his minions without breaking a sweat but Kaecilius is one tough cookie and this random newbie straight out of Kamar-Taj isn’t helping things.

The guy is about to get played and killed and judging from the hunger in Kaecilius’s glittery eyes, probably eaten too. He calls for the armor the instant they disappear upstairs and prays he won’t have to end up explaining to the Ancient One why is her recruit just a bloody splatter on his library floor.

He half expects to find just that when he eventually portals upstairs but apparently the Cloak decided to lend the noob a hem and prevent his untimely demise. And trashed the entire room in the process!

“What, by all the Vishanti names I can’t spell nor pronounce, am I looking at right now?!” he stares into the tablet JARVIS fired up during clean up.

“ _It’s the footage of the fight_ \- ”

“I know what this is, J, I mean what the fuck is _that_!” he points at the screen, speechless. He replays the whole scene a couple of times, still nowhere near understanding what he’s seeing. “What. Is. That.”

“ _I believe that’s Doctor Strange throwing the Chalice of Eternal Suffering at Kaecilius, Sir_.”

“Okay…so I’m not just hallucinating, you’re seeing it too, right? That actually happened, yes?” he calls for reassurance, putting the segment on repeat.

Needless to say, he spends the next ten minutes crumbled on the floor in tears. He hadn’t had such a good laugh in _years_. He instantly sobers up from his amusement when the new guy not only dares to snark back at him, but also steals the Cloak.

Stealing might be a strong word, the Cloak obviously found his true love or something and Tony gave up trying to find logic in its behavior long time ago. So he just ends up pouting and trying to trash Doctor Noob some more…and somehow he spectacularly fails.

Either he’s getting old or somehow this guy has a brain worthy of competing with his own. Unacceptable. Highly unlikely.

Yet completely true – probably on both accounts. He _is_ getting old and Doctor Asshole _does_ have an interesting brain for the lack of a better word. The rest of him isn’t all the uninteresting either.

Maybe he’ll finally have a worthy adversary to banter with around Kamar-Taj. Everyone but the select few in the form of Wong and the Ancient One is so boring in there. Especially Mordo. He’s a cool sorcerer and everything, but god does he remind Tony of a certain Star spangled tight-ass supersoldier with all his righteous advice and talk.

 

One top anime betrayal and a defeated Cthulhu demon later, Tony summons a party out of thin air in Kamar-Taj and decides to get royally wasted, just as he suggested they all should. His alcoholic streak has long ended though and nowadays he just prefers to spice up his tea with some good rum.

Irish coffee? Also not bad, but it’s the tea that really gets everyone offended all the time. The Ancient One is appalled at him ruining the tea, Wong is outraged about ruining the good rum…it creates a lot of adorably angry energy in the room and Tony loves to bathe in it.  

Today he might break the no-shots rule. He’s allowed to do that on shit days. He’s been through a lot of shit but this day takes a long-term crown in shit days. The Ancient One being half Sith, Cthulhu nearly eating the world for dinner, Strange fucking up the natural order with the Time stone to a point it almost broke Mordo…Tony will need a vacation after this. A long one.

“Doctor Stark?”

He nearly ignores and tunes out the call because who in all the circles of hell would ever call him that?! The answer is simple – a fellow man of science who can appreciate the value of a doctorate. Like Bruce – or this strange, cape stealing doctor.

“Doctor Strange,” he turns to face the man, piercing him with his infamous glare of doom. “Believe me when I say I’m not above reopening that rift into the Dark Dimension and throwing you in there if you ever call me that again.”

“Excuse me?” he reels back.

“You heard me Witch Doctor. The name is Tony. Not Stark. Not Doctor. Not Mister and most definitely not Anthony.”

“Will you stop calling me weird nicknames if I call you Tony?”

“You mean _strange_ nicknames? Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” he grins.

“A bit hypocritical of you, isn’t it?” he squints at Tony, folding his arms in sync with the Cloak’s hems.

Damn that thing must really like the guy. “Sure is. Can’t blame me, like teacher like student,” he winks at the Ancient One, watching them suspiciously from the other side of the courtyard. “Question is, are _you_ willing to risk a trip back to Nostradamu?”

“Dormammu,” he grimaces at the mention of the demon.

“What the…what kind of a superpowerful immortal demon lets himself be called _Doormammu_? Now _that’s_ a ridiculous name. Fine, wizard. What is thy preferred form of addressing thyself?”

He rolls his eyes and relaxes his defensive pose. “Just like you, I have a name. How about that?”

“You want me to call you Doctor Strange? Dude, everyone is going to think it’s your superhero name or something.”

“It’s _Stephen_ ,” he goes back to squinting at Tony…which he really shouldn’t find so adorable.

“Seriously?” Tony blurts out.

“What,” the squint turns into a tiny frown.

“Stephen Strange? I know people like alliteration, in general…has a nice ring to it, rolls off the tongue and all that…but your parents took it a step further didn’t they?”

“Again, you’re just jealous _your_ parents didn’t think of it first,” _Stephen_ smirks and raises a daring eyebrow at him.

Definitely. Interesting.

“ _Stephen Stark_? Pffffft. That’d be horrible, no thank you. _Steven_ Stark? That would actually be even worse. Just imagine me arguing with Rogers as we oh so love to do _. Shut up, Steve! No, you shut up, Steve_! _Steeeeeeve_!” Tony chuckles, eying the inviting bottle of whiskey.

Strange follows his look and whips out something from behind his back and the Cloak. “Ah! Almost forgot about this one. I know you wanted a bottle, but I figured and endless glass of whiskey is going to work just as well.”

Tony takes the offered glass and watches it fill up into a double-shot of whiskey. “Uhm…”

“It’s the thank you…for saving my stupid, padawan ass from certain doom back in the Sanctum.”

“Yeah that’s…that’s nice. I mean…this is a brandy glass though,” Tony stares at the abomination in his hand. “You created an endless glass of whiskey…with a brandy glass.”

“Oh.”

“That’s singlehandedly the most offensive yet bold and entertaining gift I’ve ever received. You have no idea how many people will this thing piss off, seriously…I can almost see all the _“WRONG FUCKING GLASS”_ memes with a picture of me drinking from this. Genius!”

“I’m…glad you like it,” he watches him with the same blank expression the Ancient One uses whenever his genius reaches critical mass in her presence.

Like teacher, like student.

“Consider the carpet my gift to you for saving the world. Not sure gift is the right word though, it’s a menace. You’ll see.”

“So you keep saying. Yet, it’s been a great companion.”

“Whatever you say, Stephen. One day, you will hear my smug ‘I told you so’,” Tony grins, his eyes too busy studying the smug expression on the Ancient One’s face. That’s never good.

“Can’t wait. Now if you excuse me, _Master_ Tony,” he takes a mocking bow, lips twisted in a satisfied smirk.

“See you around, young padawan Cthulhu slayer,” Tony rolls his eyes at the theatrics.

 

He should have known everything would only go downhill from there.

**Author's Note:**

> Next: ...Civil War as you most definitely don't remember it :D
> 
> Honestly, my favorite thing about writing this is the fact I could reduce the absolute abomination that is Age of Ultron into basically just the first ten minutes of the movie. Bad news is, Wanda and Pietro are still up and about. Good news is, Tony is too badass to give a damn. 
> 
> ...now someone help me forward the time to the 26th of April so I can sit in a theatre for three hours, slowly dying on the inside. That trailer guys...my god.


End file.
